


trust me, boy (you wanna be high for this)

by electrumqueen



Series: Spartacus: Panem et Circenses [2]
Category: Spartacus Series (TV), Spartacus: Gods of the Arena
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electrumqueen/pseuds/electrumqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Hunger Games</i> fusion. Gannicus was sixteen when he volunteered for the Games; everybody knew he would be coming back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	trust me, boy (you wanna be high for this)

This is something Victors say:  _Anyone can win the games. It takes something else to survive._  
  
  
  
Gannicus was sixteen, a Career tribute from District Two. He volunteered ahead of his best friend, slipped past him with a smile and a wave and  _maybe next year it’ll be your turn_  and grinned out at the cheering, roaring crowd. By then, even, he had been noticed - he and Oenomaus, the two best and brightest of the Two’s technically-illegal Career School. Melitta rolled her eyes at him from the girl’s section, just a flicker of concern passing her face before it was gone: everyone knew he would be coming back.  
  
The escort read the next name and Gannicus blinked three times, put his hands in his pockets and blinked again. Oenomaus was pale, open mouthed; Melitta shook her head slow, confused, and stepped forward, through the crowd.  
  
Gannicus thought,  _nobody will volunteer for her_. It hit him at the same time as it hit Oenomaus; Oenomaus’ mouth snapped shut and Gannicus swayed, shook his head, extended his hand to help Melitta up because she was his  _friend,_ even if nobody else would be volunteering because that just didn’t make tactical sense, not for the Centre, not with Gannicus as strong as he was. It would be a waste.  
  
“Ladies and gentlemen of District Two,” announced Quintilius Varis, “I give you your tributes.”  
  
Melitta’s hand was sweaty, clammy.  
  
Gannicus took a deep breath, squeezed it tight, whispered, “Don’t worry. You’ll be back.”  
  
  
  
They ask him, after, what it felt like to hold her body in his arms when he had promised to bring her back, when he had been secretly in love with her all this time.  
  
Varis is watching, off-stage.  
  
He tastes dust in his mouth, swallows stale anger, fear, horror; says, “I would have done anything to keep her safe,” and for all the thousand lies he has told the Capitol interviewers, this is the one truth. He would have killed them all and then laid his own throat bare and he would have done it gladly, without a second thought. He loved Oenomaus and he loved Melitta and her life - her life had been, objectively, worth a whole lot more than his.  
  
  
  
“I swear,” he told Oenomaus, in the quiet tastefully-appointed waiting room, “I swear I’ll get her home.”  
  
“Gannicus-” Oenomaus looked like he would be sick, like he had just come out of the practice arena, “You’re my  _best friend.”_  
  
 _“_ You love her,” he said, slow, careful, “and she didn’t choose this. We did, we’re  _trained_ ; she’s not. She - she deserves to come back.”  
  
Oenomaus swallowed, caught Gannicus by the shoulders, pulled him close. “Both of you deserve to come back,” he said. “Thank you.”  
  
  
  
He would have done it. He could have.  
  
They were not close to the end when it happened but he had trained his whole life for this: he could kill thirteen tributes, he could do it with the knives from the pack or sharp rocks from the lakeside or he could make a bow from the trees. He could do little else but this, this game he had been made to win.  
  
They made camp, the two of them, in a thicket by the edge of a cliff. They were safe, he told her; nobody would come near them, not this early, not while there were easy kills to be had still. He built a low fire and she went to the river for water and they were  _safe_ , he thought, they were going to make it.  
  
And then the cannon went off.  
  
  
  
It was not until they asked him if he had anyone at home that he realized, that it hit him. It had always been the three of them: Gannicus-Oenomaus-Melitta. OenomausandMelitta, and Gannicus. He had never begrudged them their relationship; they had never shut him out.  
  
“Any sweethearts back home?” Cossutius asked.  
  
“No,” he laughed, thinking about all the girls who had passed through his bed, charming and lovely but ultimately meaningless, nothing in comparison to Oenomaus and Melitta - oh, he thought, oh.  
  
The game, this game, was all about perception.  
  
He bit his lip, looked away, “No,” he said, letting the horror seep through; “no, she came here with me.”  
  
(It was not until much, much later that he realized it was true.)  
  
  
  
He didn’t think it was her, at first, but he ran anyway, just in case, because he had sworn to her that he would bring her home. Then he saw the face in the sky, thought through his racing heart, through crippling heartache that if nothing else he could avenge her, could rend the life from whoever had slain Oenomaus’ beautiful Melitta, his friend, his partner, the girl who had raced with him as a child, who had thrown sand in his face and bound up his career school wounds, who had gotten drunk with him that first time and confessed that she loved the way Oenomaus laughed.  
  
He outpaced the hovercraft, knelt by the prone body as it whirred above them. He was crying, he was choking on his own tears; he was thinking about Oenomaus’ face and the grief overwhelmed him. There was a little pool of water by her side, by her pale beautiful face, and he thought  _always boil the water_ but she had been in training to  _design jewellery_ , how could she have known?  
  
  
  
Oenomaus caught him in a fierce hug, whispered, “I know you would have brought her home if you could, brother,” and Gannicus could not move, could only think:  _I told them the truth when I said I loved her and I did not mean to,_ could only think:  _I have betrayed us all._  
  
  
  
He built her a funeral pyre, though he could not stop the hovercraft taking her body. Her hair streamed dark and lovely below her limp body and he thought he had never seen anything like that before, anything like Melitta’s body, absent Melitta.  
  
He built the fire as high as it would go and waited for all of them to come to him.  
  
It did not take long.  
  
(It was, in fact, a record.)  
  
  
  
It was the most impressive win in the history of the Games: thirteen slain by Gannicus’ hand, in the four hours following Melitta’s death. There had been almost a riot in the streets; Capitol citizens outraged by the unpalatable fate of the star-crossed lovers.  
  
As an appeasement, they gave him a wooden sword and Capitol citizenship and told him he was free.  
  
  
  
Years later the Gamesmaker, Tullius, tells him that they poisoned the water only when they saw her coming, that they could not afford to have a sympathetic pair at the very end. He is very drunk; he says, “you were so convincing, Gannicus; we all thought the two of you were in love.”  
  
Gannicus grits his teeth, shakes his head. “What do you mean?” he says, wry twist to his mouth, “of course we were.” He imagines the spray of Tullius’ blood, how it would look, crimson across the marble floor. His fingers twitch to see it realize, but this is the Capitol: there are cameras everywhere.  
  
  
  
They only kissed twice, Gannicus and Melitta: once for the cameras, when she realized the game he was playing and picked it up too, pressing her lips to his in a desperate realization, a show for all the Capitol viewers to send them food and weapons once they were in; the other time, he likes to think, was theirs.  
  
The cameras were all facing in different directions; cannons were going off all around them. She looked fragile in the black Tribute jacket but her hands wrapped steady around the knife; she whispered, _we made it past the Cornucopia,_  and he laughed despite himself, high on adrenaline, on the quick kills of the two who had tried to take Melitta out,  _stick with me, baby, we’re going all the way to the end._  
  
She turned to him, then, and her eyes were wide and her fingers were cool on the side of his face, and he could do nothing less, only lean in and kiss her, hold her close.  
  
He thought:  _we’re going to win._  
  
That was stupid, obviously. There is no  _we_  in victory.  
  
  
  
The next year, Oenomaus said, “I’m going to volunteer.” He had not been the same since Melitta, since Gannicus’ win; he had believed Gannicus when he had said  _it was for show_ and  _you know she loved you_  but there was this space between them, there had to be, even though they knew they loved each other.  
  
Gannicus said, “You’re going to  _win,”_ and he smiled, bright, as though it would not be a death sentence, as though the arena would not strip Oenomaus of every last good thing about him as it had done for Gannicus.  
  
He had not been able to protect Melitta, though he had sworn he would: the least he could do was keep her lover safe.  
  
He clapped Oenomaus on the shoulder, said, “You’ll move into the house next door, we’ll be neighbours again,” and they laughed like they were whole intact people, like Melitta was in her mother’s house, like the sun still shone bright.  
  
  
  
After, Gannicus went to Quintilius Varis and said, “Oenomaus will never go to the arena.”  
  
Varis raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know,” he said, “it does seem like it would be satisfyingly symmetrical.” The weight of his gaze was heavy, hungry.  
  
The citizenship protected him, now, but Gannicus understood how the Capitol worked: you gave something to get something else. He closed his eyes, fell to his knees.  
  
  
  
That year, Two’s preliminary Games were particularly brutal: Theokeles, a promising fourteen year old on many forms of illegal pharmaceuticals, went berserk and took out one of Oenomaus’ eyes in the final round.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Gannicus said. It wasn’t a lie, not really. “I know you wanted to win.”  
  
Oenomaus, wrapped in bandages, shook his head. “They’ve offered me a job at the Centre. I suppose it’s the closest I’ll get, now.” This year had been his final chance, but anyway Two would not send someone defective like that. There was no risk of him, standing on that stage. Not anymore.  
  
Gannicus clasped his arm. “That’s something.” He swallowed; there was a bitter taste on his tongue. “I’m moving to the Capitol.” (Varis had suggested it; it had not been a suggestion, really. There are always - things that can go wrong, in a training centre.)  
  
“Oh,” Oenomaus said, one eye dark. “Congratulations.”


End file.
